#Fire Insurance Company Online

[samuel20007]

Fire Insurance Company

Buy Fire Insurance from Magma HDI Best Fire Insurance Company in India. Our Fire Insurance Provides Financial Security for Your Home or Business to Help You Return to Your Normal Life as Soon as Possible.

[mixingpumpkins]

Man, we really lost when we decided that the best way to feel safe or to try to prevent bad things from happening is to assume malicious intent from everyone and police every little fucking thing about existing.

Want to go shopping? You'll be treated like a thief. Security cameras, anti-theft sensors by the door, and a staff that may or may not follow you around isn't enough; we're also putting security tags on every single piece of $4 underwear in the bargain bin and keeping everything on the shelves under lock and key, so you can't even look at it without staff assistance/supervision. No, cameras and staff monitoring checkouts isn't enough. We also need someone else searching your bags and verifying your receipts at the door. (And god help you if a security sensor somewhere didn't get deactivated properly and the door alarm goes off.)

Are you a student taking an exam? We've already decided you're a cheater. Of course you are — all students cheat. So you get assigned, spaced out seats in the testing room, surrounded by cameras. Show us your photo ID at the door. Nothing goes in the room with you but your pencil. Leave your phone, wallet, water, and anything else in a locker outside. All your jewelry, too. No long sleeves. Let us check your hair/headbands/pockets/ears/religious garb in case you're smuggling something in. Need to leave for the restroom? No, you don't, or your exam is done. Emergency? You can choose between literally shitting yourself or failing your course and risking expulsion for cheating.

Online exam? Prepare to be subject to literal spyware. Your eyes better not waver a fraction out of the "acceptable" gaze window. Don't press any button you're not supposed to or mis-click anything; that's proof you're trying to cheat. Don't even think about shifting in your seat, even if your test is two hours long.

Do you work? It'd better be at top speed and no errors at all times. We have security cameras trained on you every moment, sensitive enough to read the text of any paper you handle. We're tracking exactly what you do and how fast. Did your metrics slip for even a second? Unacceptable, even if your rate is otherwise within our "acceptable" range, because we know you can work faster. Yawn? How dare you — we don't pay you to be tired. You're not working hard enough. You must not have enough to do — your requirements have now tripled and we've cut your pay as an incentive not to waste time again. Make a mistake? You must have done it on purpose. You must be trying to steal or sabotage. We'll be evaluating to see how quickly we can fire you and if we can press charges or sue you for damages.

Need to travel via plane? It doesn't matter if you're paying through the nose to do so; you're clearly a criminal who's only not committing a crime at this very moment because you're outnumbered by security officers. We need to question you excessively if you don't look exactly like your ID picture taken three years ago. Take off half your clothes and walk through our scanners that will basically show you without them. (Then prepare to be wanded, and possibly groped — maybe even by more than one person — and if we really feel like it, taken to another room to be stripped and questioned further.) You can't take some necessities with you. Your belongings will be x-rayed and pawed through and commented upon, and they're maybe even a reason to detain and question you further. Why does your purse have suspicious organic matter in it? No, that can't possibly be a bag of fruit snacks you bought from the kiosk 20 feet away; you're trying to hide explosives.

Need medication? You're lying. You're faking. You're just trying to get drugs. You're an addict. You're a dealer. No, you don't have a condition that really requires medication; if you just slept more/lost weight/did yoga/were a better person, you wouldn't have to feel like you need to use drugs. We don't care if your doctor says you need this medication — your insurance company says you don't. Oh, you can afford it anyway? At that price? You must be reselling. We need to investigate and put notes on your file.

Communicating via message? God forbid you take even a fraction of a second too long to respond. You must be trying to hide something. You're slacking off your work. You must be cheating on your partner. You must have a problem with the sender and are leaving them out of something. You left them on read; you're being a bitch. You edited a response or took too long to type something — you're actually being mean and manipulative by not just saying what was on your mind first. Company policy is we get to see everything on your devices. You shouldn't have a problem sharing your personal location/passwords/etc. with your partner if you're not up to no good.

Want to simply exist where a stranger might see you? That's suspicious. What are you doing out here? We don't recognize you. You must be stealing. You must be casing the houses or stores in this neighborhood. You must be looking for someone to rob/assault/harass/etc. You must be part of that rabble claiming they're protesting to cover up the nuisances and criminals they are. Why did you hold a door for me — are you trying to get behind me? Why have I seen you more than once while I'm shopping here — are you following me? Why did you smile at me — do you have a problem? Why are you walking down the street? Why are you sitting on a bench? Why are you visiting the library? Why are you eating alone at the cafe? You don't look like you belong here. You look like a creep. You need the police to come handle you. (If they use force, that just shows you were up to something and totally deserve it.)

Want to exist online? We need to know everything about you — your real name, address, email, age — to ensure you're not a criminal. But you're probably also lying. We need to spy on everything you do, too: every site you visit (and how long you spend there), every purchase you make, every message you send, every search you do. We will take everything you say in bad faith, so be careful about what you post. But it's also extremely suspicious if you don't post — who doesn't have an extensive social media presence these days? What are you trying to hide? You need to indicate that you think the right way. You aren't posting about this — you must not care; you must be a bad person. You deleted an old post — you must be trying to hide your awful views. You can't possibly just be removing things from your profile that no longer reflect who you are. You posted something that I don't like — I knew there was something off about you. It's not a leap to think you're also into worse things. You're probably a pervert. You're actually a criminal of the worst sort and this is an early warning sign for those of us who are smart enough to see it. We're only accusing you of these things NOW so you don't have an opportunity to do them.

Didn't you know? You need to be constantly watched and humiliated and inconvenienced and sometimes even attacked because that's the only thing standing in the way of bad things happening. If you find all this demeaning, there's something wrong with you. Only criminals would rather trade this for being less safe. You don't want us to go from thinking you're a criminal to knowing you're a criminal, do you?

...

Like, fuck. Aren't you tired of living like this???

Some of this stuff has been around for a long time, and it obviously isn't applied evenly across all demographics. But a lot of it has also gotten exponentially worse within the past few decades. Please don't ever accept any of this as normal or necessary or good, because it's not. I'm going insane watching people shrugging off the increasing infantilization and dehumanization of everyone just because this is all they can remember.

It doesn't have to be this way. Don't ever take this shit as a given — it wasn't that long ago that some of this would have been unthinkable. And the instant someone starts talking about doing things a certain way/supporting certain things because of "safety" or "security," be very careful about blindly agreeing with them. We lose very real, important things in pursuit of the nebulous concept of "safety."

[kingshovelbug]

Hii what is your best advice to younger adults trying to make it independently and make a living? In art, savings or anything you think of. Thank you in advance!

dont be too hard on yourself. its tough out there right now in regards to like everything regardless of what old people say. also this is going to be a lot so im slapping a read more on here

⭐️ first thing id recommend for anyone is to start figuring out a budget. figure out how much youre making monthly. keep all your food receipts for a month or two to see what youre spending on food. find out what youre paying for thats necessary like utilities and whats not

the goal for a budget (or at least mine) is to find a good balance of earning vs spending. im paying off my credit card right now because i ran through all my savings after we had to move last year but my goal used to be to save 1/4 of what i earned after bills and putting money into an emergency fund (usually an emergency fund is 3 months worth of expenses). but it depends on how much you can comfortably put away. if you can put more away do it. but if you never spend money and deprive yourself of joy youre going to burn yourself out regardless of what your job is

⭐️ if youre not already buy store brand for as much shit as you can. if its an ingredient i promise as someone who cooks and bakes you probably wont notice the difference. if its an actual snack it depends. again both from a money perspective and to boycott pro-isreal companies we get a lot of snacks from aldis and theyre awesome. i dont miss anything from mars, oreos etc when i have my chocolate coconut wafers

⭐️ if you have any subscriptions and you need to get rid of something you can probably cancel them. for *most* things theres some kind of free alternative. but again just like with a budget. there are going to be some subscriptions that make your life easier and while youd save money without them it would lead to extra work and burning out. ex willow has kofi gold because it has really cool extra features that help with running the shop. but for streaming services? im going to be so honest. both to save money and with how cheeky streaming companies (in a bad way) have been getting… you can find whatever you want to watch online for free

if you need to use anything from the microsoft office suite, but youre not required by youre job to specifically use microsoft, libreoffice is a free alternative that i actually like better. its what i use to help willow run their shop and its free

for art programs. if you still have photoshop switch. not just for money reasons. adobe is getting bold with what they can claim as their content and use from what people produce in their program. the switch isnt the easiest but there are a bunch of alternatives. some free some like csp offer one time licenses which are so much better than subscriptions. will has spent almost $2k on photoshop and after effects from using it as long as they have. when csp is $50 and they like csp better anyways. i also know of krita and fire alpaca which are free

⭐️ also theres stuff about being an adult that i thought you had to pay for but you dont? like for car insurance i went through an independent insurance agent and they found me a cheaper plan than i could find myself. i didnt pay the guy. they get a cut from the insurance company for finding them another customer. some banks or credit cards offer financial advising sessions to users. its boring but if you can get a copy of your health insurance see if they have any free shit on there thats available for you. my brother gets free doctor finding? like i can call them, tell them what specialist he needs and instead of me calling around to find one that can take him, they connect me with someone. my work offers 3 free therapy sessions (better than nothing) and free food that i take advantage of

⭐️ i think one of the biggest things that makes an impact for us is researching before buying stuff. sounds like a no brainer but you dont just want to find the cheapest deal. you want to find the best bargain, the best bang for your buck. whats the best quality thing you can get that you can also afford? itll prevent your from having to replace stuff all the time and by extension spending more than you need to. we have nonstick pots and pans that are scratched and starting to peel (which apparently can cause cancer??) that were cheap because of being on sale. now after looking into what makes quality cookware i know i should of just slowly bought stainless steel

⭐️ last big one. credit cards. unfortunately we need them so find one with a low apr and that offers decent cash back. use it up to like 20% of your limit and pay it off every month. focus on using it on things that will get you cash back so you can essentially get free money

im sure i could ramble more but this is already super long

[penvisions]

dev was fired

ha, so yeah. this week was phenomenal with the plagiarism of three of my fics, anon hate, and now being FIRED. sorry in advance for the rambling

i literally just applied for a position at another location for the bakery yesterday. i am moving to my mom's residence in the next state over since my medical expenses have become so much and my mobility has diminished. but now i will have little to no finances to move and have no job lined up

the company is telling me i can appeal the decision after 30 days and be deemed able for rehire. i am trying to get in contact with the other store i applied to, to see if there's any way we can maybe move forward despite this. because it's retaliation from my direct management here, i would swear by it

but yeah, so i have to put myself into that weird, rent will be late because i moved out / broke my lease, stretch the prescriptions i have until further notice, still provide necessities for my cats, and move three hours away by the end of the month situation. my insurance was cancelled the second i signed the termination papers and my upcoming surgery will have to be cancelled

i'm just...feeling so lost and beat down. i really don't know what's even happening right now. i just....yeah. there is absolutely no pressure at all, i promise you, but i'll be linking my ko-fi in case anyone wants be kind enough to toss me a few dollars. but i love y'all so much anyway, truly.

buy dev a ko-fi

the sheer support and outpouring of love in the wake of everything that happened this week has brought a smile to my face. i have so much love for y'all and this little community as a whole! droves of kind and loving people far outweigh the bad in my experience and for that i am grateful ♡♡

but i'll be taking a small break from being chronically online while i try and sort everything out as best i can (will still have access via mobile in at my new residence but need to get internet set up)

love y'all and hope the days are good to you ♡♡

[cortosis-ct]

The Bad Batch and their jobs (Modern AU)

In my headcanon they all started out as soldiers. After getting out and accidentally acquisiting Omega, they desperately need money and take any jobs they can get. Eventually, everyone finds something they actually like.

Hunter:

Retail sales associate aka Walmart slave and getting yelled at by Karens all day. He's also doing freelance cleaning jobs, the grosser the better the payment. Think hoarder apartments with fifty cats or scat orgy hotel room cleanup.

He works hard on getting his record cleaned up and eventually secures a job at the fire station. He becomes a firefighter and will eventually be a lieutenant and later captain.

Tech:

Fast food worker which means lots of being yelled at by hangry people who are unhappy with the way their BigMac was stacked. He takes any extra shift he can get.

After several failed rounds of applications, he hacks into a big company's system and puts his name on top of the candidate list. He ends up supervisor for some bank insurance IT stuff with lots of numbers.

Wrecker: Miner. It's hard work and long hours in the dark. He actually earns the most of all of them but that's because it's fucking dangerous and depressing.

The leading instructor for the demolition expert trainees blows up. Wrecker, having had professional training in the military and lots of experience at not getting blown up (again), is their best take so he becomes their new instructor for the new hires.

Crosshair: Nobody is really willing to hire him so he's an unlicensed taxi driver most nights. (He hates everything about it.) He also signed up as a freelance roadkill collector job in Hunter's name and takes the calls when he doesn't have passengers.

He meets railroaders when cleaning up railkill one night. When smoking he mentions how much he hates being a taxi driver and the railroaders recruit him for their company. He becomes a traindriver and finally doesn't have to interact with his passengers.

Echo: They call it online sales associate marketer and customer service advisor. He calls it tele-scam-marketer. Many people yelling at him but at least he can work from home.

At a parent-teacher conference of Omega's school he helps another parent with a technology problem. He's like: "I tried to get rid of that problem for hours and you did it within five minutes. You gotta be a master software engineer." and Echo's like "I get payed to get yelled at as a telemarketer". Turns out the guy is an HR associate at an IT company and gets Echo a proper job.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The things people do to make a buck. Here’s a 5-room tent for rent on someone’s deck in Scottsdale, PA for $399/month.  Electric, Propane for Shower and Grill, WiFi, Porta John is inc., BUT it is priced for only 2 people (Additional charge for more people). The listing has now been taken off by Zillow, (it’s fuckin’ freezin’ in Penn. right now), and Zillow says it was placed there by a 3rd party. Zillow knows damned well this is illegal. 

It’s pretty big, but it’s seen better days. 

Notice the tear. It comes furnished with: Double pull-out bed, recliner, dining table, lounge, city water, Hot shower in separate Shower TENT on the deck,  BBQ gas grill, dinnerware, glassware, cookware, bed linens provided, blankets, and sleeping bags. Propane heater available at extra cost.

RENTERS INSURANCE REQUIRED @approximately $10.00 per month via an online policy or your car insurance agent. (Like any company would insure this thing.)

I cannot believe this. They actually rigged up a cold water sink and 2 burners (what happens when it rains?).

The eat-in kitchen. 

Here’s the dining room.

Living room with romantic fire ring thing. 

Deposit required, too- may be spread across 2-months. Owner wrote: Zillow does not have a tent option, so I selected "house." This is an elevated TENT. (That’s probably how the ad got past Zillow.) Doesn’t say anything about this river.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1524-W-Pittsburgh-St-10-Scottdale-PA-15683/2061323137_zpid/

[kamiyugure]

ANGER IS A GIFT

Ok, so the presidential and a lot of other really important elections in the US look like they just went way right and there are so many people rightfully angry and scared.

That being said, DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE BLAME GAME. This is a waste of valuable time and energy.

Your anger at these outcomes is justified but this didn't happen because your Muslim friend couldn't in good conscience vote for either of the two candidates turning a blind eye to our direct contribution to A GENOCIDE being perpetuated against their people and the destruction being done to their ancestral homelands.

And it certainly isn't the fault of the poor and disenfranchised and those that republicans have been working their asses off to disempower for literally decades: historically black, hispanic and poor neighborhoods with abysmal funding for public resources that deliberately include making it extremely difficult to vote.

It didn't happen because of those that rightly sensed the Democratic Party's lack of a spine on any serious issues we care about: giving weak promises to "fix" things they haven't bothered to fix during the last FOUR YEARS they've had in office.

We've been blue this WHOLE TIME and what has the Democratic Party done with that? Basically nothing. We still haven't codified Roe v. Wade. We've INCREASED spending on police, not decreased it. And millions of EXTREMELY vulnerable people like the working class, the disabled and certainly muslims and LGBT people are as scared as ever and they saw more regressive policies put in place against them not fewer.

The Democratic Party keeps relying on their favorite strategy: letting the opposition strip away rights so they can use that as campaign talking points but when we hand them power, THEY DO NOTHING TO FIX WHAT'S BROKEN.

My mom recently got fired up by old Rage Against the Machine music videos and I feel fired up, too. Particularly their song Freedom and its accompanying video. One of the most powerful lines in any song:

ANGER IS A GIFT.

Why?

Because anger lets you know that a wrong has been done. It gives you the will and ENERGY to find the problem and deal with it.

DO NOT WASTE THIS GIFT ON POINTING FINGERS AT YOUR ALLIES.

Who are your allies?

Your fellow leftists. Your poor and working class neighbors. And more than anything else, the marginalized that keep getting used, abused, and dismissed by our broken systems.

We need to build and strengthen aid and support networks and our connections with people we care about. The government after this election has been fully hijacked by the rich and powerful, the regressive and the ignorant.

BUT!

There are organizations all over the country that are passionate about doing what's right for those people who are consistently wronged by the systems in place.

I live in the deep south, in a rural town in East Texas. And even here, there is a small organization that's mostly just one woman calling and fighting insurance companies for medications for low income families. There are food pantries and a great local library. A larger nearby city, within an hour's drive, has a planned parenthood and a small LGBT community.

FIND THESE ORGANIZATIONS or start building them yourself and PUT ALL OF YOUR ANGER AND YOUR ENERGY toward HELPING EACH OTHER. Build mutual aid and support the efforts that already exist around you to help, support and protect the real lives of real people within your existing communities, both near and far.

Start or join online communities of support and mutual aid. We will not make it through another Trump presidency by attacking each other. The systems are what's broken so lets fix it or build new and fight like hell against the people trying to break those positive systems down, whether they carry a blue flag or a red one. We can't recast votes for these elections, we can only do what we can to help and protect one another. That's all we had before this, too, but I think this makes it clearer than ever.

And lastly, please reach out to those you know will be the most scared by this outcome and be their shoulder for crying or their ear for listening and then stand up together and start taking action to make things better.

[akilahia]

OC tober day 6 and Goretober!

Oc Past:

This technically the past of Hazuki Adiu, from day 1, in relation to the vehicular manslaughter fun fact.

Childhood:

She had like a pretty normal childhood, except she was often lonely and had some trouble making friends. 

When she was 16 when people at her school started to make fun of her because her parents made adult films, and that was how she found out. This permanently wrecked the relationship with her parents and she had a really hard time even talking to them.

The Incident:

Hazuki got accepted into a college and was admitted. She went to an orientation thing of some kind on July 10th but on the way home it was storming and raining heavily.

The weather was so bad it was causing major mudslides and she could barely see ahead of her. Out of nowhere Yumekio Hiroyuki ran out in front of the car and was struck. Despite Hazuki’s cautious driving when Yumekio was hit she was knocked off the steep road and rolled a long ways down. Hazuki spent two hours trying to look over the side of the steep hill, digging in the mud trying to find the girl. After being gone for hours her parents drove out to find her. Her mother drove her home their car while her father drove home Hazuki’s car. Her parents both assumed that she had hit a deer or some other kind of animal.

Escalation:

Hazuki was so distraught by the incident she would not leave her bed. In July 18th  her parents admitted her to a mental health institution. The conditions of her treatment worsened considerably over time and were extremely unethical. The head doctors treated Hazuki like a pest and more than always invalidated her experiences. 

Hazuki was only able to get out because a new therapist that transferred to the Hospital encouraged Hazuki to report this to her parents. This triggered a massive lawsuit against the hospital from multiple families and former patients. Hazuki and the therapist and many others testified against the head of the institution and the head doctor. They were all fired, they lost their licenses, and many served jail time.

The Next Stage:

Hazuki didn’t stick around long after that, she took all of the belongings that she could and piled them up into her car and drove away. She didn’t have a lot of money but she managed to pull some together while staying in a cheap motel. She also did an online college course while working part time at a Jamba Juice down the block during the day and a Radio Shack at night. She saved a bunch of money on gas from not having to drive to work and she sold a bunch of her possessions until she finally had enough to rent a small house nearby to both of her jobs. She continued to work two jobs until she completed her online college classes and got a bachelor's degree in computer science. It wasn’t long until she received a job for a editorial company where the pay was decent and she had the benefit of being able to work from home. For her it was easy work, not something that she had ever dreamed of doing but she was fine to settle with it.

Addiction(drug and sh tw):

She really only would eat Zucchini and microwaveable meals, occasionally she would cook for herself but only if she felt up to it, she ended up becoming extremely skinny and affected her stamina and exhaustion levels. She wasn’t doing well though, there was an intense trauma still left open from her time in the hospital, she didn’t know what to do, so sometimes she’d drink, and sometimes she’d smoke, then she tried weed, then worse, and worse and worse, and she was hooked. At a point her heart was all she could hear, it was both beating faster than she’d ever felt but also slower than she’d ever heard, but she wasn’t sure which was right. She was very lucky though, someone called the hospital and she survived. If nearly dying didn’t scare her into sobriety then waking up in a hospital did. The Doctors would lean over and ask questions about who she was and the police and insurance. She got scared and left one night without being discharged.

Sobriety:

She returned home and threw out anything harmless that was still in her house. The first sixth months of sobriety were the hardest for her, she was cold and then hot, shivering, and puking but she didn’t give in. She refused to get professional help and struggled through this alone. The symptoms of withdrawal lessened over time, she occasionally would have a beer or smoke a blunt but she never had another drug or took another pill whether it was medicine or not. She rarely went to stores or public spaces anymore, she was burnt out and it was harder for her to recover from it, then it was for her to recover from her Heroin addiction; It wasn’t until her 7th year living alone did she find herself recovering from being burnt out. She started eating proper meals again and went out on walks and drove to places just because. She knew only a part of her was healed though but she would never get back to where she once was.

GORETOBER: Bugs!!!

I did a quick doodle for today!

Yumekio Hiroyuki is a very famous figure/from a famous family within my OC world. So Hazuki would constantly see pictures of the woman she accidentally killed that she now projects the faces seen on the magazines in a state of decay. She wouldn’t be smiling, but that’s all she knows about her accidental victim

[writesaboutdragons]

365 Promises of God

Day 285 – Your Joy May Be Full

And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. (1Jo 1:4 NKJV)

Read: 1 John 1:1-4

Almost 19 years ago, we had a tragic house fire. Tragic in that it destroyed the upstairs bedrooms in our house. Two of my kids were home, and downstairs folding clothes, when the fire alarm upstairs went off. My son’s bedroom was glowing an angry orange, and there was black smoke all over the vaulted ceiling above them. Gray smoke was cascading down the stairs toward them, as they fled out the front door and got a neighbor next door to call the fire department. The firemen were right around the corner, and came in through the back upstairs window to put out the fire. I got the call from an EMT who was crying, telling me she had tried, but she couldn’t save her.

Visions of my daughter flooded my eyes with tears. I choked out a question about who she was talking about. The woman told me our dog had died of smoke inhalation. The kids were all ok.

Those of you who know me clearly understand that I love animals. I don’t just tolerate them in my home. Oh, I threaten them with a stew pot when they’ve been bad, tearing something up or going potty indoors. But I’d never hurt them. They are family. But to me, in that moment, I couldn’t care about the dog we’d only had a couple months, when I realized my kids were safe.

A coworker drove me home and took hundreds of pictures of the damage, while I stumbled through the dark upstairs choking on the stench of charcoal and staring mutely at the black soot staining my hands from the banister rail. I was, frankly, in shock. My wife got home with the baby from his six months checkup, and after the initial shock was frankly ok with the whole thing. Our insurance agent showed up and handed me a check to cover the cost of a hotel and changes of clothes for everyone, and put me in touch with an apartment that quartered us for 3 months while our home was, essentially, rebuilt. Our insurance company tried to replace whatever we could prove was lost. But the one thing we could NOT find a replacement for was my son’s teddy bear. He needed it to be identical to the one he had lost, one that he had snipped the eyebrows off. We searched for weeks to find one online, to no avail. And I broke down and cried.

We managed to make it back into our home for Christmas, and celebrated with a tree being the only thing in our remodeled home.And life went on, for the rest of them. But somehow, all the FUN had gotten sucked out of my life, and I kept staring at my hand, remembering the soot all over it, and my daughter’s glasses sitting in the sunlight in a pitch-black room, the only splash of color being the spot where the glasses had sat. I sank into a deep depression over the course of the next twelve months. I went through the motions of work, eating somewhat mechanically, and trying to smile and engage with the rest of my family. But the bills didn’t get paid until there were threats of credit agencies. Birthdays went unremembered, and life just sort of ‘happened to me’ or perhaps ‘around’ me. I spent many nights a little fearful that we’d have another disaster. One worse. I found it difficult to sleep, and difficult to wake up. In fact, it was almost painful just going through those motions. And I knew I needed to snap out of it.

One of the things I couldn’t understand is how my wife simply snapped back. While I went through life in a fog, she seemed cheerful, upbeat, and positive. In some respects, I suppose she was being strong for the rest of us. But the honest truth was that I’d lost confidence in the love of God. That my circumstances were an indication of His favor, and the fire convinced me that he was unhappy with me and had destroyed my home.

My wife, however, was not focused on her circumstances. She found her confidence in who God IS, and the circumstances might not be understood, but God certainly doesn’t change. Her positive attitude came from a wellspring of JOY. Mine came from a stagnant pool of HAPPINESS, which had dried up in that inferno.

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s GROWN, over time, and often through trials like this. After over a year of that clinical depression, I’ve come to realize that God didn��t change, and the fire wasn’t his judgement. With a lot more reading and praying, I’ve reached the point where I know God loves me infinitely, no matter what happens. Anything that He allows through is for my growth and benefit and His glory. And the knowledge of that fills my joy tank to overflowing.

The Apostle John was the last of the 12 to be martyred. And his first epistle was written late in life in Ephesus, around 95-110 AD. The gospel he penned, and that the other apostles wrote, were documents to encourage the budding churches in their newfound faith under extreme persecution. John knew that they were in the fire. So he wrote this little letter to remind them that these gospels were eyewitness accounts of the greatest figure in all of history, and the greatest hope of all of mankind. These weren’t legends and myths handed down by word of mouth over centuries. These accounts were testimonies from those who had been there with Jesus. The resurrection they all witnessed, the miracles Jesus performed, these statements about them were admissible in court. And that would fill their hearts with JOY, even in their trying circumstances.

So, whatever your circumstances, remember that God loves you, that He’s provided a hope and a future for you, and that he’ll never leave you or forsake you. That, dear Christian, should fill your OWN heart with Joy.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, fill my heart with JOY, today. Amen

[gay-sin]

Severance, flip phones, far from home: the impossibility of opting out 

I finished Severance by Ling Ma about a week ago. I loved it so much. I am not in school anymore and I am having a hard time trying to fulfill my desire for intellectual conversation. It’s not like I’m not learning anymore. I’m learning so much. These days, I am filling in the gaps of my learning in the sections of life that I chose to put off while prioritizing academia. I’m learning to take care of myself, complete tasks, hold myself accountable, and generally survive. It is hard and I miss the conversations I would have in school that felt like they truly challenged and deepened my worldview. Reading has been a great solace to me in that way but it often feels lonely to read something and not get to discuss it with others. I can never simply read or watch something without wanting to dig in and discuss the implications. I like to use fiction to interrogate real things. I have so many thoughts about Severance and what it had me thinking about in my own life as I read it. I decided to write it down to at least converse with myself as I did so. I'm posting it online to see if anyone would want to engage in conversation with me as well. It is not in MLA or whatever. I’m not in school. I can write how I want. 

I think that the title of Severance is very layered. On the surface, it references the phenomenon of severance checks (payments given to terminated employees that are fired due to layoffs or retirement). The payments are based on the amount of time that an employee has worked for the company. Effectively, it aims to take care of the people that have taken care of the company until they can find new work. Severance describes how companies have cut long-term employees and these checks in order to maximize profits at the cost of minimizing quality. This seems to echo a larger trend that the novel revolves around: a cutting off (or severance) from our interconnectivity under our current systems of hetero-patriarchal white supremacist colonial capitalism. What a mouthful. But basically… Society is severing us from the things that make living meaningful, and for many, possible. 

The characters of the book all seem to be struggling with the desire to opt out of this system (who wouldn't want that?) The narrator, Candace, immigrated to Salt Lake City from Fuzhou as a child. This severance from her ancestry, culture, and family was done in aims of giving her a better life in the United States. In many ways, it was an action done by her parents in order to attempt to opt out of the struggles of life in Fuzhou, made increasingly difficult under global capitalism. Even so, the choice was really just opting into a new set of struggles. The book describes the complex effects of this immigration on Candace and her family. In addition, it describes the guilt of leaving and the burden of feeling as if you are in a country that despises you while you must constantly prove yourself to it.

Candace’s ex-boyfriend felt dehumanized by the working in corporate America and therefore lives on the fringes of the system, skimping by. He believes himself to be opting out of the system. In this quote, Candace interrogates his lifestyle.

“I know you too well. You live your life idealistically. You think it’s possible to opt out of the system. No regular income, no health insurance. You quit jobs on a dime. You think this is freedom but I still see the bare, painstakingly cheap way you live, the scrimping and saving, and that is not freedom either. You move in circumscribed circles. You move peripherally, on the margins of everything, pirating movies and eating dollar slices. I used to admire this about you, how fervently you clung to your beliefs—I called it integrity—but five years of watching you live this way has changed me. In this world, money is freedom. Opting out is not a real choice” (205).

The illusion of opting out is a privilege. Jonathan, unlike Candance, is American. This gives him the ability to exist in America without questioning or proving his belonging. He does not carry the weight of supporting his family or really anyone but himself. Even so, he barely manages that. Candace, not afforded many of Jonathan's privileges, works for in a corporate office. Jonathan, idealistic and blind to his own advantages, is consistently criticizing this choice.

I have always had dreams of opting out. I've spent much of my life dreaming of this. I think that part of why I went to college was to opt out of joining the workforce for four more years. I studied art because it seemed like that would be opting out of the monotony of having a Real Job. I bought a flip phone to opt out of smartphone addiction. I moved across the country to opt out of my family. 

Severance depicts a world-ending incurable pandemic. The illness is called Shen Fever and it is somewhat akin to a zombie apocalypse without the eating of humans. The sickness comes for everyone, even if it does demolish the areas with the least privileges first. In the end, everyone is susceptible. You cannot opt out. You cannot buy your way out of an incurable disease. 

You cannot buy your way out of climate change, even if you can avoid its consequences for longer. Sure, you may be privileged enough to be given the illusion of opting out but this planet is deeply, densely interconnected. You are not opting out. You are delaying the inevitable. 

Over the summer, I went to an anarchist bookstore in Philadelphia and bought a book called Meaningful Flesh: Reflections on Religion and Nature for a Queer Planet. I would read the essays on my breaks from work, trying to see if I could be someone that reads academic theory in my free time. It ended up being very dense and difficult to get through but it was incredibly interesting to me. I was reminded of the second essay of the text when reading Severance. It is called, “Irreverent Theology: On the Queer Ecology of Creation” by Jacob J. Erikson. The essay aims to queer our ideas of nature and matter with a theological lens. That is a massive oversimplification of the text but I don’t want to stray too much from my original point here. I just wanted to include a quote from the essay to gesture to how these concepts in Severance have resonances in so many areas of life.

 “For this particular nature-cultural moment, we must be irreverent of old stories and ideas in our constructive creativity. Ideas of pristine nature, untouched wilderness, essential selves, essential genders, and uncomplicated assumptions of desire and sexuality, deaden and violate the messy and embodied realities of creativity, embodied ecology, and enfleshed divinity” (74).

Collectively, we have attempted to sever ourselves from the environment that we are interwoven with, dependent on, and constantly in conversation with. The consequences are far-reaching and the effort is inevitably futile. You cannot sever yourself from the environment that sustains you. You are the environment.

On Saturday, I took an Uber home from my friend’s house and chatted with the driver. We talked about daylight savings and how stupid it is. Why make the sun go down sooner? I wish I could opt out of it, but then I’d be an hour early to every event from now until spring. I told him that I thought that the government was supposed to get rid of this system but apparently they were too busy committing genocides. We talked about Palestine and how clear it is that what is happening is devastating but how some people still blindly support Israel. We agreed that people have lost a fundamental part of their humanity: a severance from the part of themselves that sees innocent people dying and is devastated and outraged. In America, we have the choice to participate in these colonial ideologies,  push against them, or to not have an opinion (to “opt out"). It is an American privilege, the illusion of opting out of mass murder. None of us are separate from this conflict. Our tax dollars are being spent on the weapons that do the killing.

I am a white American. I have a large array of privileges that give me the illusions of choice. But at the end of the day, none of my choices have truly opted me out. At the end of the day, these severances have only handicapped me in other ways. I have gotten lost and missed appointments that I could have simply typed into Google Maps on a smartphone. I walked to urgent care by myself when I could have called my mom to pick me up if I didn’t move so far away. I carry the debt of my art degree and I will be making monthly payments from now until forever. I don’t have enough money to get out of an unhealthy living situation.  How free am I? How much have I opted out? You can opt out and be crushed by the weight of what it means to be alone, still dependent and existent within the system you’ve supposedly broken out of. But if you opt in, do you get sucked in? What choice is there?

“To live in a city is to take part in and to propagate its impossible systems. To wake up. To go to work in the morning. It is also to take pleasure in those systems because, otherwise, who could repeat the same routines, year in, year out?” (290).

In Severance, the fevered mindlessly repeat patterns. Their condition is an identifiable sickness. Yet, at the same time, Ma also gestures to the fact that it is not too different from the condition that we all share. Our daily repetition, often mindless, trying to find pleasure. The condition one must adopt to survive in this world. The sickness is not individual, it is collective. The cure is not individual, it is collective.

My coworker is moving home across the country after moving away from his family many years ago. He told me about how stressful the process has been for him. I could relate a lot to what he had said. The unsustainability of not having family closeby. The feeling of - what am I proving? The unsustainable nature of being alone and the sometimes equally unsustainable nature of family. Every choice seems to be a choice to sever yourself from one thing or sever yourself from another. Either way, the choice is rarely to come together. The deeper we just get into becoming a mess of severed pieces. 

I got a flip phone back in 2021 when I took a year off from college. At the time, I had fallen headfirst into a lot of the crushing realities that I had never really wanted to face. I was back home living with my family. I was coming to terms with my health, my sexuality, my lack of funds, my place in the world. I was cut off from my illusions of Making it Big and was faced with what Making it Small would entail. I was trying to shoulder the weight of the world that seemed to slowly be collapsing. I got a flip phone as an experiment, to see if I could do it, to see what it would feel like.  I wanted to know what it would be like to have to figure things out on my own, to be in silence, to be present in the moment that I was in. I wanted to stop opting out of being alive. 

About a month ago, I switched back to my smartphone on a whim. To see if I could, to see what it would feel like. It hasn’t solved anything. It hasn’t cured me. It has made my life easier in a lot of ways but harder in others. I miss the way I could walk around with a built-in excuse as to why I had not seen your email. I liked not having the pressure of every piece of knowledge at my constant disposal. I miss the way I felt I could walk around the world without trying to sever myself from it. I would walk in silence instead of trying to impose some soundtrack onto my reality, the soundtrack of the life I’d rather live.

[anonymusbosch]

if I have random downtime to longpost in the next couple weeks I was thinking about a couple things

- the recycling post that's been kicking around in my mind for a while

- how California's solar (semi-)surplus works, why marginal energy prices go negative when fossil fuels are still online, peaker plants & baseline load generation etc - i.e. "part of what's hard about solar"

- EV vs gas car safety, specifically w/r/t battery fires and/or major recalls

the last one I have the least domain expertise in but it's interesting to me BECAUSE the main EV battery fire safety reporting that I could find all hinges on one "study" by an insurance company that claims to have drawn from databases that don't exist, but like 17 newspapers take this reporting at face value. Digging deeper into what's going on with that and at least talking about that data issue in particular is really intriguing

[samuel20007]

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[shanie]

I just found out that there is literally no way to get my wrestling figure collection insured.

Multiple TW's below cut

I have had a long history of severe recurring nightmares regarding apartment fires which was only allieviated by getting renters insurance.

The nightmares went away for two years, until I was alerted via new paperwork that the renters insurance ONLY covered clothing and furniture. It covered no electronics or collectibles, short of 1000 dollars each (which wouldn't even cover the cost of one computer).

I attempted to rework my insurance through other companies, only to just be told, after two months, that my collection is uninsurable due to none of the pieces actually being considered collectibles.

According to the insurance company, I have an entire apartment full of plastic crap that has no value whatsoever, and it doesn't matter that I've shelled tens of thousands of dollars into this collection over my lifetime, none of it actually counts as having value in an insurance company's eyes.

I just know this is gonna wreck my sleep. The horrible nightmares are going to come back and I'm going to have extreme anxiety over losing my stuff all over again.

I know this sounds horrible, people say "It's just stuff, YOU can't be replaced" but when you live my life, and one of the only things keeping you from doing something stupid and unfixable IS SAID STUFF, then yeah. That's not a sustainable philosophy to have.

I live package to package. There aren't enough good experiences in my life to sustain me beyond that. I have online friends, but none in real life that I could actually make memories with. I try to keep said online friends in mind and try not to do dumb shit that would hurt them, but really, in my darkest moments at 3am when I have nobody to dig me out of the pit of despair, it's my collection, and whatever upcoming stuff there is that usually talks me down.

It doesn't help that the reason I live package to package is that I have a spending addiction. The only time my body produces dopamine is when I open a new figure or collectible, or when I spend time painting or customizing or posing said collectibles.

So you can imagine how much it would destroy my entire will to live if something were to happen that everything I owned burned to the ground and I had nothing to show for a lifetime of opening packages.

Basically?

My life is pointless and I guess at this point hinges on my never having a catastrophic loss because if I lost my collection at this point?

I'd probably prefer dying with it in the fire.

[herunswithscissors]

"The younger generation is morally better than us. They are kinder and more empathetic. They do work hard. But they far more clearly see where their work is worthwhile vs where it isn't and they don't waste their efforts on busy work or helping the rich get richer."

i sure asf am experiencing this empathy when i try to debate feminism on this site. feminists who prioritize their own sex def. don't get piled on by a bunch of jerks who cannot tolerate people with different priorities. the rape and death threats women get on here scream moral.

What you have experienced on Tumblr is horrific and evil. It is some of our worst parts of our culture that are wrapped up in our toxic male culture of misogyny and patriarchy combined with a bunch of might makes right and alpha male/sigma male bullshit.

I'm sorry for how you have been treated. It is wrong and every guy who has been part of that should have to read their texts aloud to their mother while Mom has her chancla. And then they should have to pay you a millions of dollars in damages in court for the damage to your quality of life and the terrorism that they inflicted upon you.

Partly it is because Tumblr is run by the same set of Aristocrats, techbros, and Muskrat fanbois as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and health insurance companies. I'm sure Tumblr's board of directors go skinny dipping with the Sacklers on Epstein Island. They all hate women and minorities and any kind of real diversity.

So they allow all the bullying and give terrorists freedom to keep you quieter or at least keep you angry, hurt, scared, anxious, and distracted to keep you from burning shit down.

All of that #MeToo stuff was just a peek behind our own curtain of boys-will-be-boys, bro culture that protects really bad guys and teaches all the rest of us to be more misogynistic and downright mean. And a huge portion of men (and their right-wing female allies) rejected the very idea and lampooned it to death.

And I know so many female scientists and professors who should be protected by their position in society, their well-connected colleagues, and universities/labs. They are harassed online mercilessly in the most ugly ways. And then they get it from some students and colleagues too. And their institutions sweep it under the rug or fire the woman because they are all run by Aristocrats and conservatives and Capitalists.

It is horrible and evil.

When ya'll get to burning shit down, I'll help.

But sadly, today is the best time in history to be a woman in our culture.

And for the vast majority of other cultures on Earth.

I've only been around for 45ish years. Up until 3 years before I was born, my mother could not get a bank account in her name. Not without either her father or husband as primary account holders on it. Timeline of some of the financial things here

Sexual harassment was a way of life for a huge contingent of guys when I was in my teens and early 20's. Most of the other guys just thought it was funny. It was only just beginning to get better in the 90s. By "better" I mean it became less socially acceptable to do in public and more guys would speak up in defense. But there were no real consequences and harassment in private never stopped.

Because kind of like racism and "diversity" and such, the people in charge of shit and a large contingent of the population refuse to change their hearts. They just want to stay out of trouble without ever changing themselves or allowing the culture to really change.

So, yes, this is the kindest generation we have ever had in America. Even if we aren't very kind compared to almost anyone else. We are generous, helpful, pleasant, friendly, and hopeful people, but we are not kind.

We are so far behind all the Brown nations in kindness and love, but look at our history. We started way behind thanks to the Aristocrats and their colonizing bullshit we got into bed with them on. But it really is kinder today.

That is sad, but perfection is a human invention. It is always about direction of growth or decline that any judgement of a people ought be made. That and how do they treat women. And how do they treat the poor, oppressed, and sick.

What direction are we moving and how do we treat the people who don't have the power to stop us or really just need some food and a place to live in safety?

That is what defines a good culture and a good people in my book.

So what does that say about us, that people like Anonymous are treated so horrendously on a regular basis and they are just a drop in the ocean? What does that say about us when we are the best people we've ever been in America (or Europe) and we are still this terrible?

[mariacallous]

At first glance, the Silicon Valley Bank debacle seems to be a cut-and-dried financial caper. The executives running the 16th-largest bank in the US made the wrong choices in handling what seemed a fortuitous situation—a roster of clients, flush with venture capital funding, handing over billions of dollars of cash for storage in the institution's coffers. But the bank’s leaders misjudged the risks of higher interest rates and inflation. Pair that with a mini tech downturn, and the bank’s spreadsheets began turning colors. When word of its perilous situation got out, panicky depositors pulled their money. After a government takeover, everyone’s money was safe. 

But although no depositor lost money, the saga looks like a traumatic event whose consequences will linger for months, or even years. Things happened that we can’t unsee. The SVB saga reminds me of what my wife, a true-crime reporter, says when people ask why she finds murder stories so interesting. A killing, she’d say, reveals the previously private, shrouded actions that define the way people live. In the course of investigating the crime, lives that looked ideal from the outside are exposed as unmade beds of secrets and lies. 

Start with the bank. As has been widely reported—only now with a critical eye—Silicon Valley Bank was not only the bank of choice among Silicon Valley companies, but an ingratiating cheerleader for startup culture. The VCs and angels funding new companies would routinely send entrepreneurs to the bank, which often handled both company accounts and the personal finances of founders and executives. SVB would party with tech people—and vintners, another sector they were deep into. Some bankers had wine fridges in their offices. Salud!

Normally, you’d have to hold my family hostage before I became a banker—I picture the buttoned-up prig who hired Mary Poppins. But I might think differently if banking were a world of parties, high-end Cabernets, and elbow-rubbing with universe-denting geniuses who keep millions in the bank and take out mega-mortgages. By all accounts, SVB shared and perhaps amplified the freewheeling vibe of the swashbucklers it served. This is not what you necessarily want from a fiduciary. And as we learned this week, SVB’s CEO reportedly indulged in one of the worst things a founder can do—selling off stock when trouble lies ahead. 

 When that trouble arrived, we also learned a lot about the investment lords of the Valley who give founders the millions they need to move fast and make things. As word began to leak of SVB’s weaknesses, VCs who style themselves as tech’s smartest people had a choice: help bolster the financial partner holding the industry’s assets or pull funds immediately. The latter course would trigger a panic that would assure disaster for the startup ecosystem—but not you, because you were first in line. 

Despite years of talk about how companies in the tech world are united in a beneficial joint mission, some of the biggest players went into self-preservation mode, essentially firing the starting pistol for a bank run. One notable bailout leader was Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which got an early sense of SVB’s troubles and advised all its companies to get out ASAP. As word spread, a classic bank run took shape, with other VC firms urging pullouts, until it was impossible to connect online with SVB to move funds. By the time a group of VCs came together to pledge support for SVB, its virtual doors were shut. In the mad rush to the lifeboats, hundreds of companies were stranded on deck. When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took over Silicon Valley Bank last Friday, with all activity frozen, those whose holdings in the bank far exceeded the $250,000 limit on insured accounts truly faced the abyss.

I get it—saving one’s own skin is human nature. But in the future, let’s go easy on hyping the camaraderie of tech. 

And what did the Valley’s rugged individuals do when oblivion loomed? They begged for a government rescue, of course. It’s hard not to empathize with some of the rank and file tech workers, many of them far from California, who wouldn’t be able to meet their bills. And indeed, there were some acts of generosity, as investors extended loans to their portfolio companies. But the loudest voices urging bailouts didn’t seem to be those most in jeopardy, but super-rich investors and speculators likeself-described angel investor Jason Calacanis, PayPal mafia billionaire David Sacks, and Machiavellian hedge fund magnate Bill Ackman, bombing Twitter with over-the-top pleas to rescue depositors.

Their case was that if depositors didn’t have immediate access to their funds, SVB’s woes might be “contagious,” setting off a wider bank panic. A reasonable concern. But it’s unlikely these pundits would have made the same arguments if the institution in question were some regional bank of similar size in the Midwest. Some people arguing for a federal bailout had previously opined that the government should keep its tentacles away from the innovative geniuses of the Valley.

The spectacle is particularly ironic because a huge part of startup lore is not just accepting risk but embracing it. We hear endlessly of the bravery of entrepreneurs who step into the breach and put millions of dollars in jeopardy, hoping to buck the dismal odds of creating a difference-making company that, by the way, makes its founders ludicrously wealthy. It’s part of the game to lose your investor’s money and a couple of years of your life because you felt that a $400 juice machine would be the next iPhone. 

Now those noble risk-takers were demanding retroactive protection—because tech-company money was unavailable due to a totally avoidable risk. Any idiot knows that FDIC covers only $250,000. So why did so many firms store all their assets in uninsured accounts in a single bank? You might give a pass to naive founders who blindly accepted the recommendation of their funders to use Silicon Valley Bank. (Though maybe not to big companies like Roku, which had $487 million on deposit in SVB.) But what’s the excuse of those who did the recommending? Did they notice that SVB executives actively lobbied to avoid stringent regulation? Or that for eight months, SVB failed to replace its retired chief risk officer? Did they understand that an entire startup monoculture patronizing one bank made a huge industry dependent on a single point of failure?

Meanwhile, less verbose investors and VCs quietly worked behind the scenes on convincing the FDIC to guarantee all deposits. One of the Valley’s top seed investors, Ron Conway, reportedly even got Vice President Kamala Harris on the phone to hear his plea for a depositor bailout. The case they made for protecting funds from a maximum $250,000 to, well, infinity, was a more refined version of what the Twitter panics-spreaders were saying: It would stem a collapse in the tech sector and calm people all over the country who were suddenly worried about their own banks’ stability. (It would also mean that from this point forward, holding to the limit is indefensible.) It’s not clear whether the lobbying affected the actual decision. But the attempts were unseemly, an unattractive display of the power of this massive industry. 

So what has been uncovered in the week since we learned that Silicon Valley Bank was no more trustworthy than a crypto spam text? A startup culture once considered the gem of the economy has been exposed as careless with its money, clueless in its judgment of character, hypocritical in its ideology, and ruthless in exercising its political clout as a powerful special interest. Meanwhile, the financial world is still jittery, with other banks failing and just about everyone wondering what comes next. And from here on, the concept of a cap on FDIC insurance is at risk. But at least the SVB credit cards are working again. And VCs can take a victory lap as they brag about how they saved the day.

[projektnomad]

2035

It started with you coughing up some blood now and then. Not even a lot, just some bloody phlegm on occasion, then more and more as time went on. You’d made the mistake of mentioning it on WhatsApp to a friend. You didn’t know at the time but you’d triggered keywords in an AI algorithm which had been given access to your WhatsApp chats via a quiz you’d taken on Facebook 5 years ago. The AI determined you had a high likelihood of cancer and, knowing your income and general wealth of your family and social circles, had determined that it would be fatal.

The data was added to your online marketing profile and within days your insurance company was aware of your situation. Before you’d even had a formal diagnosis your insurance premium was completely unaffordable and you’d had to drop out of your coverage plan.

Months passed without a proper diagnosis. You could just about afford one with the money you’d saved by selling your car and walking to work but couldn’t afford the day off it would take to get to the hospital, so had to keep showing up to work. Eventually you collapse on the job and are taken to hospital unconscious and against your will. With no coverage you wake up in a hospital bed with a huge debt for the ambulance ride and preliminary treatment. The staff discharge you but recommended you see a physician immediately.

You receive a text from work, you’ve been fired for gross misconduct: leaving the premises without permission. You owe them 4 weeks wages back as compensation. You can’t afford to challenge the decision. With your debt now mounting seemingly by the minute you consider heading back inside and taking advantage of the hospital’s ‘End of Life Special’; offering your organs up to pay for their euthanasia service. As you download the MyPassing app you receive an email from a reality TV company.

-Congratulations! You’ve been selected to apply for Fox’s new series, ‘Chemo Island’ where you’ll be pitted against 99 other contestants to claim the grand prize, FULL cancer treatment and a clearing of ALL medical debts. In the application stage you’ll receive a free diagnosis and (if selected) during filming you’ll receive life extending drugs. The filming is expected to last 4-6 weeks (depending on your prognosis). Contestants must be physically fit enough to complete athletic and dexterity challenges. Click here for more information.-

You ponder it for a moment, standing in the cold outside the hospital, the plastic gown they charged you an extortionate amount for billowing in the wind, exposing your genitals to a passing police drone, which immediately issues you a charge for public indecency and a fine you can’t afford. Could you do it? Every contestant you‘d be pitted against would be fighting for their life, same as you. Winning would mean consigning 99 other people to their fate, losing would inevitably mean death. But, free diagnosis...

You click on the email and visit the site. They’re no longer accepting applications for Chemo Island, the website having been overrun within the first few hours. But there is another one, specifically for contestants with a criminal record, something you achieved only moments ago. A new game show where over the course of a night you’ll be forced to fight against a series of increasingly violent former wrestlers, sports stars and b-list Hollywood actors for a cash prize that would not only clear your debts, but maybe even have enough left over to pay for treatment.

You click to fill out the form and feel a little bit of hope. How bad could a game show called The Running Man even be?